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From: drb@ihatespam.msu.edu (Dennis Boone)
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Subject: Re: PR1ME C compiler sources
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2019 20:28:56 -0500
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 >  > [As I recall the Prime machines addressed 16 bit words.  What did you do
 >  > for character pointers? -John]

See pdf pages 42 and 43 here:

https://sysovl.info/pages/blobs/prime/programmercompanion/Pocket%20Guide%20Assembly%20Language%20Rev%2018%20FDR3340%201980.pdf

for details on the pointer formats.

De
[The Prime machines suffered from having too many versions of
everything.  Page 41 of that quick reference card has a 48 bit pointer
format with a bit number in the low 16 bits.  It seems unlikely that a
C compiler would use that as a general pointer format since it doesn't
fit in any sort of normal int, and it's not what you'd want to point
at an int or a function or anything bigger than a char. -John]